Youth see more TV commercials for beer than for sneakers, gum or jeans

"The industry's own guidelines are so permissive that, in practice, they amount to no limits at all. It is like a promise not to drive faster than 125 miles per hour – that doesn't slow you down much. These industry codes do little to protect youth from ads that promote alcohol consumption."

Dr A. Kessler
Dean of the Yale University School of Medicine and former U.S Food and Drug Administration Commissioner

The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University has found that youth1 exposure to alcohol advertising in 2001 was substantial and pervasive.

Other key findings from the study, include:

Youth saw more commercials for beer than for juice, gum, chips, sneakers or jeans. The beer and ale advertising delivered to the under-age youth audience in 2001 was greater than advertising for various products normally associated with youth audiences. Beer and ale advertising exceeded the advertising delivered to youth audiences for fruit juices and fruit flavoured drinks, gum, skin care products, sneakers, non-carbonated soft drinks, and sportswear jeans.

One quarter of alcohol advertising on television in 2001 was more likely to be seen by youth than adults. Of the 208,909 alcohol commercials on television in 2001, underage youth, ages 12 to 20, were more likely than adults of legal drinking age to have seen 51,084 of them or 24.5%.

Youth saw almost as much television alcohol advertising as adults. Even when adults were more likely to see television alcohol advertising than youth, in many, instances youth exposure was substantial. For example, youth saw two beer and ale ads in 2001 for every three seen by an adult. Furthermore an estimated 30% of youth saw at least 780 alcohol commercials in 2001.

Alcohol ads on youth-oriented networks and programmes overexpose youth. Youth were routinely overexposed to alcohol advertising, in 2001 on five networks: WB, UPN Comedy, Comedy Central, BET and VH-1. Two programming categories – music video and entertainment programmes and variety shows – more effectively, delivered alcohol advertising to the youth audience than to the adult audience. Youth saw 48% more advertising, than adults on music video and entertainment programmes. 'Variety, programmes delivered 26% more advertising to youth audiences than to adults.

Alcohol Industry Codes Fail to Protect Youth

The alcohol industry's voluntary guidelines for ad placement on television for the substantial exposure of youth to alcoholic beverage advertising. The beer and distilled spirits industries call for no advertising on programmes with a 50% or more youth audience. However, in 2001, only one percent of all network and cable television programmes tracked by Nielson (187 out of 14,359) had an underage audience of 50% or more – the industry threshold. Further, even this meagre 50% threshold was violated, as alcohol advertisers spent $I.8 million to air 3,262 commercials on shows with more youth viewers than adults.

The FTC Should Act

Awareness of the level and type of advertising that reaches young people is the key to change. For years, parents, policy makers and media were unaware of the prevalence of tobacco advertising to Youth. It was only after public outrage against the tobacco industry's marketing practices that policy makers took notice and then took action.

"It appears the alcohol industry's advertising self-regulations aren't worth the paper on which they are printed. Parents should be alarmed to hear that their kids are seeing more TV ads for sneakers, jeans, gum, juice or other popular youth products. Something is terribly wrong when youth see almost as many alcohol commercials as adults. "

Wendy J. Hamilton, National President, Mothers Against Drunk Driving(MADD)

Advertising and Underage Drinking

A 1996 study of children ages nine to eleven found that children were more familiar with Budweiser's television frogs than with Kellogg's Tony the Tiger, the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, or Smokey the Bear.4

A USA Today survey found that teens say ads have a greater influence on their desire to drink in general than on their desire to buy a particular brand of alcohol.5

Research has found that exposure to and liking of alcohol advertisements affects young people's beliefs about drinking, intentions to drink, and actual drinking behaviour.6

There is a need for more rigorous monitoring of the advertising practices of the alcohol industry. The Federal Trade Commission reviewed alcohol industry advertising and marketing practices in 1999 and issued a report that recommended several "best practices" for the alcohol industry to reduce children's exposure to alcohol advertising. The Center's study reveals that alcohol companies have fallen short of the FTC's recommendations.

Get involved

Go to www.camy.org or call (202) 687 1019 to learn more about how alcohol advertisers are exposing America's youth to alcohol advertising. Sign up for regular updates on this issue and learn how you can take action to protect the kids in your life.

To see the full report and learn more, go to www.camy.org.

1 - For this report, unless noted otherwise noted, "youth" are defined as persons ages 12-20, and "adults" are defined as persons ages 21 and over.

2 - Although they are called "low-alcohol refreshers" by the alcohol beverage industry, many of the beverages in this category contain five percent alcohol, more than most beers

3 - Federal Trade Commission. (September 1999). Self-regulation in the Alcohol industry: A Review of Efforts to Avoid Promoting Alcohol to Underage Consumers: 9.

4 - Leiber, L. "Commercial and character slogan recall by children aged 9 to 11 years: Budweiser frogs versus Bugs Bunny." Berkeley: Center on Alcohol Advertising, 1996.

5 - Horovitz, B., M. Wells. "Ads for adult vices big hit with teens" USA Today (31 January 1997): News 1A.

6 - Grube, J. "Alcohol advertising-a study of children and adolescents: preliminary results." www.prev.org/prc/prc_videopresentations_grube_aasca.html (19 Nov. 2002): Grube, J.W. (1995). "television alcohol portrayals, alcohol advertising and alcohol expectancies among children and adolescents." Effects of the mass media on the Use and Abuse of Alcohol. S.E. Martin and P. Mail. Bethesda: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 105-121